


Hardly Appropriate Work Behavior (but what is these days?)

by lionessvalenti



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Community: help_haiti, Multi, Sexual Fantasy, Stolen Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:31:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Ianto stop to watch Gwen, who is watching no one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hardly Appropriate Work Behavior (but what is these days?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lefaym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/gifts).



> Beta read by Amand_r.

The light mirrored off Gwen's wedding ring (or, more specifically, the diamond in the engagement ring she wore with it) as she rolled it back and forth between the thumb and forefinger of her opposite hand. That's what caught Jack's attention, the light. It reflected onto the wall through the single-paned window separating Jack's office from the rest of the Hub, illuminating one brick for a split second before going onto the next one, and the next one, then coming back again.

He had noticed it before, starting from the time he returned and she was wearing an engagement ring. The way she toyed with it, it was as though it had always been there, comfortably around her finger, and she had always twisted it when she was lost in thought. Jack couldn't even remember what she had done before. He wondered, sometimes, which industrial overhead fixture was the culprit for catching the ring in its beam and causing the distracting light in his office.

He liked the reminder that she was there. That he was still here.

Jack looked up at the figure in front of him -- Ianto -- who had probably been in his office for five minutes (where, of course, Jack hadn't noticed because Ianto was a fixture in his office, part of the scenery, like the coral on his desk), tidying up and occasionally mumbling to himself. It was something he did when _he_ was deep in thought and doing all of his work on auto-pilot; Jack found it unendingly adorable. Not that he'd ever say anything of the sort to Ianto.

Ianto didn't like being told he was cute or adorable because it made him uncomfortable, and sometimes Jack told him anyway, but not about the mumbling. He was afraid if he told Ianto, Ianto might stop doing his work on auto-pilot, making a point not to mumble nonsense or gesture to no one like he was in the middle of a conversation, and be aware of every little movement. No, no one needed that kind of pressure, and Jack enjoyed watching the private Ianto Show that was only happening inside Ianto's mind.

Ianto picked up Jack's blue and white mug, not even glancing up at Jack's face to see if he was being watched. Was he that absorbed in his own thoughts or (still) so accustomed to not being noticed?

The lines around his eyes and lips made him look so old. He didn't have those lines when he slept, typically the only time Jack could study his face. Was Torchwood (and in turn, Jack) sucking away his youth? Was that how Jack really stayed so devilishly handsome? He could be like one of the Weeping Angels, eating up the abstract life his lovers might have lived if the job hadn't killed them.

In a way to both assure Ianto he was noticed (regardless of whether or not he felt _un_ noticed), and to give Jack and excuse to think about something else, he leaned back in his chair and gave Ianto a solid slap on the rear end.

Ianto blinked down at him for a moment, slightly surprised, then he smiled. The lines on his face disappeared, the deep thoughts melting away with them, and it was as though Ianto de-aged about ten years. "That's hardly appropriate work behavior."

What a typical Ianto-thing to say. He had to know how his mundane words with mild sarcasm inexplicably wound Jack up. He would take Ianto on the desk right there if Ianto would let him, but not with Gwen on just the other side of the glass. Jack suspected she would like to watch, join in even, if not for her marriage, of course, but both Ianto and Gwen could be surprisingly old-fashioned about these kinds of things. Gwen would never admit to wanting it (though she did; Jack could see it in her eyes when she saw him and Ianto express even the slightest bit of affection in her presence) and Ianto would never allow it. Disappointing.

Jack stood, laying a hand on the small of Ianto's back, on the silky silver backing of his waistcoat, smooth and cool to the touch, warming slowly, pressed between Jack's hand and Ianto's body. "Since when have you known me to conduct any sort of appropriate work behavior?"

"Never. But one of us has to be a professional. However..." Ianto voice lowered as he looked up at Jack through dark lashes. His hand dropped below the belt and his backs of his fingers pressed against the fly of Jack's wool trousers. "If you're available after work, we might be able to get together. What do you say?"

"You're on." Jack leaned forward and kissed Ianto. It was the thing to do at the time and, frankly, he wanted to. He didn't always go around kissing people because he felt like it at the time. Then again, if he kissed everyone he wanted to whenever he wanted to, Jack would never get any work done, though his life would be considerably more fun.

Ianto indulged him for a moment, but pulled away when Gwen's ring-light flickered across their faces. He looked out the window at Gwen, who was still paying no attention to them or anything else in the world. "I imagine she's mid-sexual fantasy about you right now."

"Nah, if she were, her hands would be busy somewhere else," Jack replied, glancing out the window himself, his eyes drawn to the bit of exposed cleavage from the top of Gwen's V-neck tee shirt.

Ianto snorted softly, then turned away from the window and shifted onto his other foot, so his body leaned just slightly more toward Jack. "Sometimes I think about her." A guilty smile spread across his face, and Jack wanted to hear more, in detail. Maybe with drawings. Sexual flashcards.

"So I don't take up all of your fantasy time?" Jack asked. His mind flashed to an image of Ianto sitting on the sofa in his flat, still dressed except for where he'd pulled his dick out through the open zipper, wanking while he thought of someone who wasn't Jack. If he could, Jack would paint a picture of the image; capture it forever. Someone would want to hang it in a trendy art gallery somewhere. _Ianto Jones, Wanking_.

"No, but I do get to have real sex with you." Ianto blinked as the reflected light crossed his eye, but for a moment, before his eyelid shut, his eye flared bright blue like the sea off the Boeshane Peninsula in the morning, and Jack's breath actually caught in his throat. Sometimes Ianto was nothing short of beautiful, and that reminded Jack how he was (somewhat regrettably, since it was bound to end in pain and suffering for at least him, if not both of them) in love with Ianto.

Jack smiled, sliding his hand over the material of Ianto's waistcoat to another spot where the fabric wasn't as warm. "That's an acceptable answer. The other acceptable answer would have been 'Yes, you do. It happens that many of my fantasies involve threesomes.'"

Ianto laughed, and that felt important, making Ianto laugh. He was young and he didn't laugh enough, and maybe that was why there were lines around his eyes. Maybe that's why he looked so old sometimes.

"I don't think I've ever fantasized a threesome," he admitted.

"Really? I think about it all the time." Jack looked out the window again at Gwen, at her cleavage and at her eyes, currently vacant as she thought about something a million miles away. Then, as though she could feel his gaze on her, she snapped out of it, and her eyes were drawn immediately to him. She smiled, thoroughly comfortable with the idea that he had been watching her.

"Why haven't you just slept with her?" Ianto asked, no jealousy in his voice, no resentment. Only curiosity, maybe truly wondering why Jack didn't act on his impulse when he had wanted to sleep with Gwen (no, he's wanted to be with Gwen, which is an entirely different thing) for so long.

Ianto might wonder someday, or even now, why Jack though about threesomes instead of only her. He had real sex with Ianto; he shouldn't be part of some fantasy, and the answer was: Jack honestly thought sex would be better with both of them at once in some sweaty, unplanned tryst. To kiss them one after the other and watch as Ianto's precise hands did their work unbuttoning Gwen's shirt. To have Gwen from behind while she bent over, sucking Ianto off, and to catch Ianto's eye, smiling, and silently ask each other, _how did we get so lucky?_.

Or at least that's what his fantasies had been telling him for the last two years (plus another year that happened, then didn't).

Jack smiled in Gwen's direction, but it might have been a smile at Ianto. "Because it would ruin her."

"Do you think? It's done wonders for me."

Jack laughed, his loud laugh that echoed off the brick and glass and came back into the center of the room. Gwen stood up and started walking toward the office, a smile on her face, wanting to be in on the joke, perhaps a little afraid they were laughing at her. He looked at Ianto, before she got there and the moment changed, not for the worse, but before it became a different moment between three of them instead of two. "You know what I mean."

The best part was it only took one look and Jack knew Ianto understood exactly what he meant.


End file.
